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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28713924">Yes, Punk.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaArthurPendragon/pseuds/BeaArthurPendragon'>BeaArthurPendragon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Sex, Bittersweet, Blow Jobs, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt Steve Rogers, Light Angst, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Protective Bucky Barnes, Reunion Sex, Wakanda (Marvel), reposted</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:22:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,419</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28713924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaArthurPendragon/pseuds/BeaArthurPendragon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>As he followed the narrow path down to the house, he was startled to see an immediately familiar—and surely impossible—figure silhouetted on the bank of the water. His hair was too long and even in the half-light of the moon, Bucky could tell from his posture that he was tired, exhausted even. But he was there, skipping rocks on the lake like he used to do as a boy at the Prospect Park pond when he had energy to burn but no strength to run.</i>
</p><p>Or: Steve and Bucky deserved a better ending. </p><p>(Edited and reposted; see author's notes for details.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>207</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Yes, Punk.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi! Yes, if this fic seems familiar, you are correct! I originally posted this a year ago, and took it down a little while later because I didn't think I did a very good job of portraying Wakanda. Anyway, here it is again, with some edits. (Yes, I realized after I'd deleted it that I probably should have just *updated* it with an edited version, but, well, I'm an idiot.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The evening was mild and pleasantly fresh as he walked home from the palace. It was six miles to his house, but it was a good night for a stroll: The fall rains had ended four weeks before, but much of its lushness still remained throughout December, and would persist until the middle of January, when the true dry season began. But for now it was the best of both worlds; plump, springy grass beneath his feet and clear, cloudless skies above, riotous with stars. </p><p>Behind him, the Birnin Zana pulsed with life. Wakanda celebrated the turning of the year with a weeklong festival in the capitol city, teeming with winter cattle markets, technology expos, and arts exhibitions. Bucky had gone into the city nearly every day of the festival to wander the street fairs, snacking from food stalls and exploring the convention halls, sometimes with a few children from his village in tow.</p><p>It reminded him of wandering the Stark Exposition with Steve before the war, and the thought made him feel both happy and sad at once.</p><p>Most things made him feel that way now, though. Peace could only ever be one side of the coin of Bucky’s life; the reverse would always remain tarnished and pitted, and there was no solvent in the world that could polish it away. Sometimes he was grateful for the reminder, because he was never entirely sure that he deserved the second chance he’d been given, but other times he resented it, because if he’d had his way, he’d probably have died of old age years ago.</p><p>And yet somehow, somehow he was still here and Steve was still here. Instead of growing old together they fell through time apart, living and dying and living again, and still they found each other again. They would always find each other again—he knew this now, knew it in his bones.</p><p>He hadn’t seen Steve since before he went into cryo. It wasn’t a question of want—Tony had dedicated every resource to finding the runaway Avengers; the last thing Steve wanted to do was accidentally lead him to Bucky and the last thing Bucky wanted to do was accidentally become bait for Steve. Neither one of them had liked it, but until things cooled down, they didn’t have a choice.</p><p>They spoke on the phone when they could, however, evading any potential traces through an endless supply of cloned SIM cards that Shuri provided. Steve didn’t dare tell Bucky where he was or what he was doing, so mostly they reminisced, gently unlocking memories Bucky didn’t realize he still had, gradually rekindling the love that Bucky didn’t realize he was still capable of. </p><p>He missed Steve, yes—sometimes desperately so—but he was glad he was here, even when it was hard. For example, he had turned down Shuri’s offer of a new arm; his body had been violated enough and he couldn’t bear the prospect of another surgery, not even for this. When he tried to explain this to Steve he could tell he didn’t really understand, because of course two arms made things a lot easier, didn’t it?</p><p>But Bucky wasn’t looking for easier. He was looking for peace, and he’d come to realize that they weren’t always the same thing.</p><p>It had been nearly a month since their last call, and T’Challa had been out of the country almost as long, and Bucky could not help but suspect that these occurrences were related. Even the perpetually sunny Shuri had seemed worried. But he didn’t ask, because if he asked he would worry and if he worried he would tear Wakanda’s walls down to get to Steve and if he did that, he would be shitting on every sacrifice that so many people he cared about had made to keep him safe.</p><p>So Bucky, worried, because he would always worry, but he didn’t ask.</p><p>Finally he reached the final rise before the little lakeside house he called home now. Though he lived alone by the lake, his life was hardly solitary. There was a small village in a clearing about a half mile down the shore where he bought food at the market and sometimes took his meals. In the beginning, there had been a small detachment of Dora Milaje living at the village too, whom Bucky assumed was assigned to take him down if he lost his mind again, but now only one lived there.</p><p>Nobomi was not so much his watcher as his guide, though—she was a military psychologist trained to treat survivors of trauma, and had worked extensively in Rwanda with both victims and perpetrators of the genocide there. Her professional code prohibited her from speaking about it, but Bucky could tell she knew better than anyone else he’d ever met what he’d endured.</p><p>Bucky had graduated from daily to weekly sessions with her in a professional capacity, but more often than not she would still join him on his daily 5-mile runs around the millet fields on the western side of the lake. Sometimes they talked but most of the time they didn’t, and Bucky suspected that these runs were as therapeutic for her as they were for him. He hoped she had someone to look after her, too.</p><p>To fill his days with purposeful work, he had been given a flock of goats to tend—a child’s job, he came to learn, and the youngest villagers had gravely assumed the responsibility of teaching him the work. He liked being around them best, he found, because children had no preconceived notions about how people should be. They accepted his strange skin and his lanky hair and his one arm and his laughable ignorance of Wakandan ways and words with little hesitation and embraced him as one of their own—just an overgrown, undereducated child.</p><p>But of course they knew he was no child. They knew he was grieving, and just as all children are drawn to nurse hurt creatures, they gathered around to protect him, too. On his worst days, when he lay helplessly weeping and raging in his bed, too disgusted with himself to eat or bathe, when he could not bear to leave his hut and let the sun reveal his shame to the world, he could always take comfort in the children playing watchfully outside his door and waving away anyone who approached. “The White Wolf is resting today,” they would say with the kind of implacable authority only children could have. “You must come back tomorrow.”</p><p>He did not deserve any of it.</p><p>On his better days, he offered what little he could. He helped repair fences and roofs, carry hay bales and firewood, search for runaway goats and overly adventurous toddlers. It wasn’t enough—he would never be able to do enough to cover his debt to them—but he hoped it would suffice. “You mustn’t think of it as ‘doing better than nothing,’ Bucky, but rather ‘doing all you can,’” Nobomi would tell him. “In Wakanda, relationships are not measured by the market value of your gift, but by how much of yourself you give with it. You honor them by doing your best, whatever it may be. They recognize that. Trust me, you would not be living among them if they did not agree to have you here.”</p><p>Some days he almost believed her.</p><p>As he followed the narrow path down to the house, he was startled to see an immediately familiar—and surely impossible—figure silhouetted on the bank of the water. His hair was too long and even in the half-light of the moon, Bucky could tell from his posture that he was tired, exhausted even. But he was there, skipping rocks on the lake like he used to do as a boy at the Prospect Park pond when he had energy to burn but no strength to run.</p><p> Left-handed, and doing a piss-poor job of it, too, Bucky thought. He moved stiffly, like he was hurt. As he got closer, he saw that Steve’s right hand was bandaged.</p><p>“Steve,” Bucky said softly, not sure if he could hear.</p><p>But Steve would always hear Bucky’s voice, no matter how quiet it was, and as he turned Bucky saw that he’d grown a beard, too. It stole Bucky’s breath for a moment—he could not decide whether he loved it because it suited his face so well or hated it because it hid the face he missed more than any other. But then Steve glanced up at him through those eyelashes and all ambivalence fell away, because nothing could mask the love in them.</p><p>“Hi, pal,” Steve said, taking a few steps forward, but letting Bucky decide whether he wanted to close the distance between them.</p><p>Bucky kept walking, his pace unchanged. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to run to Steve but that he wanted to enjoy this moment for just a little while more: Steve coming to him, waiting for him. He wasn’t wearing his tac suit, Bucky noted—just a dark blue henley and jeans—his way of reassuring Bucky that he’d come in peace, perhaps, that there was no danger following him.</p><p>He was suddenly acutely aware of how different he must look from the boy Steve had known and loved, in his traditional Wakandan wrap, how apparent his missing arm was, how disorienting his own long hair and beard must be. Steve would not mind—he knew that—but Bucky knew it would take some getting used to. It had been so very long since they’d been at ease around each other.</p><p>As Bucky drew closer he could see that Steve’s eyes were watering, and realized his own were, too. Seventy-five years ago today, Bucky had enlisted into the Army and Steve had been summarily rejected. Bucky had tried to soothe Steve’s heartbreak by promising him that he would come home to him, that after the war they would live together forever, that they were already as good as married in his mind. It was one of the few clear memories Bucky still had of his life before the war.</p><p>So today was their anniversary, then.</p><p>What a strange thing for him to have, an anniversary, for it meant he had loved and been given love in return, for a long time. For a lifetime.</p><p>Steve held his hands out ever so slightly, ready for an embrace if Bucky granted him one.</p><p>He did. Bucky reached forward and Steve stepped into the curve of his arm and surrounded Bucky with the impossible heat of his body. He buried his face into the curve of Bucky’s neck, openly weeping, and Bucky felt his own tears fall freely as well. He was overcome with a mixture of grief and relief, and he was so very, very tired of trying to hold himself together. He was safe with Steve and always would be. He knew it in his bones.</p><p>“I love you,” Steve murmured into his ear, and though Bucky could not summon his voice he nodded against Steve’s cheek, feeling the tear-damp bristles of their beards brushing against each other. “I missed you so much.”</p><p>Steve kissed him then, somehow both delicate and urgent, asking and wanting at the same time. Bucky responded with pure need—he had never needed anything the way he needed this—and he felt Steve’s fingers curl tightly into the folds of his cloak.</p><p>“How are you here?” Bucky asked between kisses, trying desperately to touch every part of Steve’s body he could reach. “It’s not safe.”</p><p>“It’s safe now,” Steve murmured, kissing his way down Bucky’s neck. “I’ll explain everything later.”</p><p>“How long can you stay?”</p><p>“For a while,” Steve said, planting a soft, sucking kiss behind Bucky’s ear. “Can I stay with you tonight?”</p><p>“Yes,” Bucky said, squeezing him tight. “Of course.” He reached around and caught Steve’s hand in his and kissed it. Steve brought his injured hand up to cover Bucky’s, and Bucky gasped at the sight of it. It wasn’t a bandage but a splint that extended all the way to his fingertips.</p><p>“Stevie,” he said, kissing the injured hand. “What did this?”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Steve said. “I’m standing with my sweetheart under the stars. I’m right as rain.”</p><p>“Steve.”</p><p>“I’m fine now,” Steve repeated, touching his forehead to Bucky’s. Bucky could feel the brush of Steve’s eyelashes against his eyebrows as he blinked. “I just—” he touched Bucky’s cheek with his good hand and his jaw quivered. “It’s just really good to see you, you know?”</p><p>Bucky glanced up at him and held his gaze for a long minute. “Come inside?” he asked, and Steve nodded.</p><p>Steve held Bucky’s hand as Bucky led him into the house. As with many things in Wakanda, its outward appearance honored the nation’s pastoral origins while the interior reflected its technological excellence. Behind the batik linen curtain that served as a door lay a small but comfortable one-room apartment outfitted with everything he needed: a bed, a small table, a small kitchenette, and in small outbuilding, a bathroom with an outdoor shower that felt unexpectedly luxurious. He had electricity and hot water and a laptop connected to the national wi-fi, though he rarely used it.</p><p>“Want a drink?” Bucky asked. “Queen Ramonda gave me some good scotch for Christmas.”</p><p>“Only if you’re drinking too,” Steve said, his eyes locked on Bucky.</p><p>“Maybe later,” Bucky said, turning toward him. “Jesus, Stevie,” he said, only now noticing the livid tendrils spreading up the right side of Steve’s neck toward his chin. “Someone really did a number on you,” he said, touching the scars.</p><p>Steve shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he said.</p><p>“Let me see, at least,” Bucky said, reaching for the hem of Steve’s shirt.</p><p>Steve swallowed and nodded and gently pushed Bucky’s hand away so he could remove his shirt himself. “It looks awful, but it doesn’t hurt any—” he said, then shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt <em>much</em> anymore. I’m okay.”</p><p>“Okay,” Bucky said.</p><p>Steve reached behind his neck with his unhurt hand and dragged the shirt over his head. As he did, Bucky could see that the entire right side of his body, almost from hip to chin, was covered in lacy fractals of scar tissue radiating like lighting from his shoulder. His arm was worse; the pattern was denser the closer the burns got to his hand, and when Steve removed the splint, the skin beneath looked as though he had simply dipped his hand in boiling oil. They both watched as the hand began to curl up without the splint to keep it straight.</p><p>“The nerves and muscles were damaged,” Steve explained softly. “The serum couldn’t heal everything.”</p><p>Bucky briefly wondered if Steve could still hold a pencil, if he could still draw. But he could not bear to ask that now. Instead, he put his hand on Steve’s unhurt shoulder to guide him around. The same pattern spread across his back, almost to his spine. “Oh, honey.”</p><p>“I’m okay now,” Steve insisted, turning back around. “Everyone’s okay. It was close, but we’re all okay.”</p><p>“No shit it was close,” Bucky said, angry now. “You should have called me! Whatever this was, I could have helped you.”</p><p>“It all happened so fast,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Knowing you were here, waiting for me, that’s what got me through.”</p><p><em>Through what?</em> Bucky bit back the million questions he wanted Steve to answer. Steve was exhausted, he could tell, and haunted in a way that Bucky hadn’t seen since the war.</p><p>So instead, he touched the side of Steve’s face, caressed his ear and drew him into a kiss. “I’m right here, baby,” he murmured against Steve’s lips. “I’m right here.”</p><p>Steve nodded and began to try to work free the knot of Bucky’s cloak with his good hand, but it was his left and he was too clumsy. “Just pull it over my head,” Bucky breathed into his mouth, and Steve did, tossing the cloak toward a nearby chair.</p><p>Steve backed away for a moment, his uninjured hand playing over Bucky’s torso and plucking at his buttons. He rested his injured hand briefly on Bucky’s left shoulder, observing the neatly stitched-up sleeve, then began to loosen the buttons on Bucky’s shirt with his left hand. “Is this all right?”</p><p>“Yes,” Bucky said, kissing him gently.</p><p>Steve smiled against Bucky’s mouth. He was slow with the buttons, but eventually he pulled the shirt open and pushed it over Bucky’s shoulders. It fell away from his left side entirely, exposing the steel support plates and shoulder socket that remained attached to him, the heavy rubber cap riveted to the severed edge to seal the wiring safely away, the halo of scar tissue that surrounded the entire apparatus.</p><p>“Bucky—”</p><p>“I’m okay, too, Stevie,” Bucky said. “We kind of match now.”</p><p>Steve laughed softly. Bucky reached up and caught the cuff of his right sleeve with his teeth and pulled his hand loose.</p><p>“That’s giving me ideas,” Steve said, catching the falling shirt and tossing it aside with the cloak.</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Bucky said, working his fingertips beneath Steve’s waistband. It felt good to tease like this, he realized. To play again. To let his heart feel a moment of lightness. He’d kept himself away from joy for so long. “Tell me.”</p><p>Steve hummed noncommittally and wrapped his arms around Bucky’s waist, cupping his ass and hauling him in hard against him. Bucky rocked his hips against Steve’s, and they ground against each other like they had as schoolboys in the abandoned servants’ stairs that ran behind Bucky’s brownstone, a holdover from richer days, when only one family lived there instead of six.</p><p>Kissing and grappling and alternately holding on to one another for support, Bucky toed off his sandals and Steve worked off his boots, and then Bucky unbuttoned Steve’s fly and pushed his hand into his undershorts.</p><p>Steve let out a soft whine as Bucky closed his hand around his cock and held Bucky close as he stroked. Bucky leaned down and took Steve’s undamaged left nipple between his teeth, worrying it lightly and flicking it with his tongue. He could feel Steve’s heart thumping hard against the walls of his chest and his breath catching and shortening with every exhalation.</p><p>“Slow down,” Steve murmured, closing his hand around Bucky’s bicep. “I’ve got plans for you.”</p><p>Bucky let out an impatient moan, because nothing could set him off like the sound of Steve’s panting, and Steve laughed, a low rumble in his chest that echoed through Bucky’s own.</p><p>Then Steve backed Bucky up against the wall, pulled Bucky’s pants down, then knelt before him and took Bucky’s cock in his mouth.</p><p>Bucky sank against the wall and let out a ragged sigh, allowing his fingers to play with Steve’s too-long hair. The beard felt strange against his thighs, but good—the soft bristles created a delicious friction that made Bucky hips hitch in search of more.</p><p>But Steve put a steadying hand on Bucky’s hip: <em>Slowly</em>.</p><p>Bucky obeyed, fucking Steve’s mouth with small, gentle thrusts, just enough to tease himself, and as he did, Steve reached around with his uninjured hand and softly parted his buttocks, dragging a fingertip lightly down along the cleft to tease his hole.</p><p>Bucky gasped at the dual sensation—it had been so long since he’d felt both at once, and the corners of his eyes began to ache with tears. “I missed that,” he said softly, his voice thick, and Steve took Bucky’s hand in his unoccupied one and squeezed it gently.</p><p>After a moment or two, Steve withdrew first his hand and then his mouth, and stood. Bucky reached forward to Steve’s unbuttoned waistband and began to tug his jeans down. Steve took the hint and finished undressing, and as he did Bucky saw fresh scars from a bladed weapon—a big one, capable of truly hurting him—slicing across his thighs and calves as well.</p><p>Bucky wanted to ask him about it, but he swallowed the questions and instead threaded his fingers through Steve’s and led him over to the bed.</p><p>Steve sat on the bed and Bucky parted his knees and knelt in front of him, taking Steve’s cock in his mouth.</p><p>Steve sighed and leaned back on his good arm, caressing Bucky’s cheek with his injured hand. The hand had curled all the way into a loose fist, like the fronds of a fern after the sun goes down, and all Steve could do was brush Bucky’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. Bucky tried to push his sadness about that away, trying to concentrate only on the shattered little sighs Steve was making. As he sucked he leaned his left shoulder against Steve’s leg for leverage and took his own cock in his hand. He stroked himself lightly, just to keep himself hard, until Steve sat up and squeezed his shoulder.</p><p>“Not yet,” he breathed. “I want to fuck you.”</p><p>Bucky eased himself off Steve’s cock and rocked back on his heels. He glanced at Steve’s injured arm, decided not to even ask if it could support his weight. Sideways was out, too, for Bucky couldn’t lie on his left and Steve probably couldn’t tolerate lying on his right. “Maybe I should ride you?” he suggested gently, motioning toward the pillow.</p><p>Steve nodded and gingerly slid back on the bed—Bucky had been right about the arm being no good—and lay back against the pillow, idly playing with his cock as Bucky took a small clay pot from the nightstand and unscrewed it. Steve watched with interest; Bucky’s hand and fingers had grown even stronger as he learned to manage everything one-handed, but also more dexterous, and Bucky could tell Steve was starting to brim with questions about how he did everything now.</p><p>But there would be time enough for questions later. Bucky scooped a fingerful of sweet, honey-scented salve from the pot and warmed it against his palm until it liquified. Then he carefully straddled Steve’s thighs, took Steve’s cock in his hand, and began to stroke.</p><p>Steve hummed, tucking his injured arm stiffly behind his head and stroking Bucky’s wrist with his good hand. “Gonna have to learn to do this left-handed,” he murmured, a lazy distant look coming over him. “Gonna have to learn how to do a lot of things left-handed now, I think.”</p><p>“I’ll teach you,” Bucky said, his voice breaking a little.</p><p>“I know you will,” Steve said, smiling absently.</p><p>Bucky released Steve’s cock so he could lean forward and kiss him. “I’ll always love you,” he said, and kissed him again. “No matter how badly you get beat up.”</p><p>“You better,” Steve said, kissing him back. And then: “Give me some of that stuff.”</p><p>Bucky handed him the pot and Steve dipped out a fingerful, working it between his thumb and fingers as he’d seen Bucky do. Then he reached around as he had before, parting Bucky’s buttocks and drawing a questing finger down the cleft to his hole.</p><p>This time he breached the hole, working his slicked-up finger in as Bucky breathed deeply to relax the hard ring of muscle to admit him. Bucky dropped his head, letting his hair fall in Steve’s face, and sighed. “Feels good,” he said, leaning heavily on his right arm and rocking his hips against Steve’s hand, enjoying the sensation of his balls lightly dragging back and forth across Steve’s belly as he did. “I’m ready for you, if you want.”</p><p>Steve nodded and Bucky sat back, balancing on his knees, took Steve’s cock in his hand so he could guide himself on. Slowly, gently, he eased himself onto Steve’s cock, breathing through the pressure until they found their fit. Then he leaned back, supporting himself with his arm, and began to move.</p><p>“God, you’re beautiful,” Steve murmured, his eyes at half-mast and his left hand gripping Bucky’s hip hard as he began to thrust. “Like a painting, with your hair in your eyes and the way you bite your lip,” he said, his voice beginning to strain a little. “I dream about you like this.”</p><p>“I love feeling you inside me,” Bucky said, his own voice beginning to stumble, too. “I love the way you fill me up.”</p><p>Steve gasped as he sank more deeply into Bucky’s ass, felt Bucky’s weight more heavily against his hips. “I want to watch you come all over me. Can you do that for me?”</p><p>“I’ll do anything for you,” Bucky sighed, and he began to roll his hips more deeply. He could feel Steve’s cock begin to brush against the sensitive spot deep inside him, the one that made his own cock swell anew and his hips rock more quickly in search of more, more, more.</p><p>He rocked and rocked, his own dick growing thick and heavy with need, slapping against his thigh as he moved. He was dying for friction, for pressure, the yearning ache of it spreading through his hips and down his legs. “Help me,” Bucky said urgently, his voice breathless and ragged. “I need you to touch me.”</p><p>Steve took Bucky’s cock in his left hand, still slick with salve, and Bucky fucked his hand while Steve fucked his ass, moving together in glorious, delicious synchrony, faster and faster, the unbearably erotic slap of their bodies against each other driving their desire ever higher, harder, and their voices began to bleed into their breath, a heady blend of moans and grunts and groans, growing and growing until they became cries and shouts, the room filling with the unintelligible and unmistakable language of love. Steve always swore when he came, an indecency Bucky loved more than life itself, and this time it was a long, jagged “fuck” that bore them both home.</p><p>When Bucky’s vision cleared, he saw Steve’s scarred belly striped with come, and a soft smile across his face. His eyes were closed, Bucky noticed, and wet with tears.</p><p>“God, I love you,” Steve mumbled, cracking one blue eye open.</p><p>“Love you too,” Bucky said, easing himself off and nestling into Steve’s left side. “You’re already pretty good with your left hand, you know.”</p><p>Steve laughed softly and kissed his forehead. “Haven’t tried it on myself yet,” he said. “I was waiting for you.”</p><p>“How Catholic.”</p><p>Steve touched Bucky lightly with his right hand. “I can still feel you, at least,” he said, running his curled knuckles along Bucky’s cheek. “It’s no good for anything else, but I can still feel.”</p><p>“We can talk to Shuri tomorrow,” Bucky said. “Maybe there’s something she can do to help.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Steve said. “But even if she can’t, I’ll probably be okay.”</p><p>“I know you will,” Bucky said. “We both will.”</p><p>And for the first time in a very long time, Bucky believed it.</p><p>***</p><p>It was only later, after they had cleaned up and returned to bed, that Steve consented to tell Bucky what had happened to him.</p><p>“Don’t soften it for me,” Bucky said as they curled up to face each other—Bucky on his right side, Steve on his left, his injured arm resting on a pillow between them. “The kind of power it would take to do this to you—Steve, you could have died.”</p><p>Steve didn’t disagree. “His name was Thanos,” he said softly. “And he had the power to destroy the world.”</p><p>Bucky shifted his weight to thread his arm behind Steve’s back and curled his left leg over Steve’s for good measure. He held Steve as best he could as Steve told him about the insane Titan, how he had collected all the infinity stones in the universe, how he had mounted them in a gauntlet that would allow him to destroy half the universe’s population with a snap of his fingers.</p><p>Steve told him about the battle in upstate New York, by the compound, how Tony had relinquished his grudge to join the fight, how Thor had followed the cosmic disruption through space to its source just in time. He told him how, with their help, Steve had got hold of the gauntlet and wielded it to destroy it, how the blast had killed Thanos, though Steve had not meant to.</p><p>Because Steve’s serum came from an infinity stone, he was strong enough to survive the gauntlet’s power—but just barely. Banner said it was unlikely he would ever fully heal, for the power of one stone could never overcome the damage of six.</p><p>“I gave the shield to Sam,” he said finally. “I can’t carry it anymore. And he’s a good man, Bucky. Better than I ever was. He deserves it.”</p><p>“He does,” Bucky agreed, kissing Steve’s forehead. “He’s the right choice. I’m proud of you for doing that.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I’m pretty sure this is the first time in your life you’ve ever admitted you weren’t up for a fight,” Bucky said gently. “I’ve always been afraid you were going to get yourself killed one day.”</p><p>“I was always willing to take the risk for myself,” Steve said softly. “But I don’t fight alone, and I had to put my team first.”</p><p>“What are you going to do now?”</p><p>“I don’t know. T’Challa said I could stay here while I figured things out, so I thought I’d take him up on it. If you’re okay with that, I mean.”</p><p>“Of course I’m okay with that,” Bucky said. Then, as the implications of that began to sink in, he added a little more uneasily: “Did you want to stay here? Or—”</p><p>“Only if you’re ready,” Steve brushed his nose against Bucky’s. “The palace has a guest house I can stay at if you’d rather. I know you’ve still got work to do here.”</p><p>“I do,” Bucky said, and he could feel his heart making a decision he had not realized he might be ready to make. “But one thing I’m learning is that I can’t do it alone.”</p><p>“Then I’ll stay here.”</p><p>“Before you decide, you need to know that my bad days are still pretty bad,” Bucky warned. “There are going to be times when there’s nothing you can do to help me. And it’s—hard to watch.”</p><p>“How many times did you sit by my bedside while the doctors told you I wouldn’t make it through the night?” Steve asked. “You think I wouldn’t do the same for you in a heartbeat?”</p><p>“It’s not the same,” Bucky said. “I’ll probably say things, terrible things. Things that will hurt you.”</p><p>“Bucky, I might have given up the shield but I will fight for you till the day I die,” Steve said. “Do you remember what you said to me the day you enlisted? That as far as you were concerned, we were already married?”</p><p>Bucky nodded. “I remember.”</p><p>“We knew in 1941 we were never going to have it easy, but we wanted it anyway. Nothing about how we are today changes that for me, and I don’t think it changes anything for you, either.”</p><p>“Wait, are you proposing to me?”</p><p>“I guess I am,” Steve said, and Bucky could feel the heat of his blush. “When you’re ready, I mean, and if you still feel the same way, then yes. I would like that for us. I always have.”</p><p>Bucky swallowed. “I want to get better first,” Bucky said, “but not because I think my feelings might change. I’m going to have to live with what happened to me for the rest of my life, but I know—I <em>know</em>—that a day is going to come when I can spend more time thinking about the future than working through the past. And when that day comes, I’ll be ready to be the kind of partner I want to be.”</p><p>Steve sniffled a little and Bucky laughed softly. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to hear you talk like that,” Steve said, his voice catching in his throat.</p><p>“Like someone who’s had a lot of therapy?”</p><p>“Like someone who believes they can still come home.”</p><p>Bucky felt his throat begin to ache. “Well, shit, Stevie—when you put it that way, you’re going to make me cry too.”</p><p>“Is that—” Steve began. “Is that your way of saying yes?”</p><p>“Yes, punk,” Bucky said, kissing him gently. “I’m saying yes.”</p>
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